


Partners

by Nyxied



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Community: Suitsmeme, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Prompt Fill, Secret Relationship, Snapshots, unconventional relationship dynamics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-29 07:08:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1002417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxied/pseuds/Nyxied
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: I really want to see a story that is set a couple of years down the road when Mike is no longer Harvey's associate but a partner in Pearson Hardman. They've been together for a while and they are comfortable with each other. Mike's a little older, a little wiser, financially independent and doesn't seek Harvey's approval every step of the way. But he's still his own person. No one in the office knows that they're a couple and neither has a problem with that.</p><p>Disclaimer: I wish they were mine</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt fill for anon at suits_meme at LJ. Just a couple of scenes from the lives of Harvey and Mike, the latter of which is gaining some recognition in the legal world. It started out as a feel good fic. There is some plot, and some non-graphic sex, and innuendo (mostly made in fun), but I have not fully committed to a particular ending, which means anything goes for now. 
> 
> Also, first Suits fic and unbeta-ed.

[7:42pm] _Heading out for drinks w Louis. c u tonight?_  
[7:43pm] _Buried under files for merger case. Don’t wait up._

Tossing the phone onto his cluttered desk, Harvey returned to work, absent-mindedly tapping his pen against dry lips as he thumbed through the documents for his latest case. 

When he next looked up, it was because Donna was striding through the door with a takeaway bag from an Italian restaurant just ten minutes away the building. “Eat,” she commanded shortly, holding it out to him with a stern expression on her face. The quirk to his eyebrows went ignored as she spun on her heel and returned to her desk – the post she had not left for more than five minutes since coming back from her late lunch break. 

[8:15pm] _Thanks_  
[8:15pm] _Doc’s orders. Ur stomach’s nt made of iron, y’knw._

If Donna noticed the not-quite fond smile he was giving his phone when she returned with her purse under her arm and a declaration that she was going home, the redhead made no indication of it.

It was past midnight and closer to three in the morning when he finally slipped into bed, hair still damp from a hot shower and boxers riding low on his hips. The air-conditioning was turned up high and he curled himself around the warm body in the bed even as he tugged the comforter up to their necks. With a contented sigh, Harvey slipped off into the blissful land of sleep. 

The smell of coffee and eggs roused him from bed a few hours later, and the lawyer padded into the kitchen to the welcome sight of breakfast on the table. But he walked right by it to wrap his arms around his partner who was washing dishes in the sink in a full suit.

“I know for a fact that you own a dishwasher,” he commented into a mouthful of blonde hair. “It came with the place.”

“It’s just a pan and a couple of plates,” Mike replied, turning his head to meet Harvey’s lips in a brief kiss. “Doesn’t take long.”

“You’ve eaten?”

“Mmhmm. I’ve got trial at nine. Do you need a lift to the office?”

“Are you picking your associate up at the office?”

“Yup.” Mike shut off the water and turned in Harvey’s loose hold, tugging the older man’s chin down for a more thorough kiss. He pulled back a moment later with a frown and a wrinkled nose. “You haven’t brushed your teeth, have you?”

The broad grin he received in reply was answer enough, and the blonde shoved his boyfriend of five years away from him. “Harvey!”

They made it to Pearson Hardman by eight, Harvey’s thoughts already on the merger he was intent on closing before the business day was up. If Harold thought that it was odd that Mike was driving Harvey to work, he said nothing about it as he loaded up the court documents into the trunk and settled into the seat the firm’s most revered senior partner had just vacated. 

[]

He had won the trial. Spectacularly. Like, in the realms of left-opposing-counsel-speechless kind of spectacular. So spectacularly that even the almost certain knowledge that the plaintiffs were going to appeal the decision did little to dim the bright smile on his face as he dropped off a cup of Donna’s favourite coffee at her desk and breezed into Harvey’s office, shutting the door behind him. Browsing through the impressive record collection, Mike selected one and popped it onto the turntable before dropping onto the sofa with a pleased noise.

“I can’t do lunch today,” Harvey informed him, having already turned back to his work. “I’m—”

“Swamped. I know.” Mike ignored the irritated look the interruption had earned him and idly fiddled with the end of his too-skinny tie. “I’ll buy something back for you and my goddess. Just let me chill out for a sec here, all right?”

“What’s wrong with your own office?”

“Too accessible to needy associates.”

“You made yourself accessible to them,” was the bland reply as Harvey leaned back in his seat and crossed his legs to level a _look_ at him. “Now you live with it.”

“Pearson incoming,” Donna’s voice through the intercom interrupted whatever witty comeback Mike had on the tip of his tongue as he turned to watch through the glass walls as Jessica approached.

“Congratulations on the win,” she said, no preliminaries whatsoever. Mike accepted it gracefully but with a too-bright, too-broad grin. “I handed Harold a case to deal with. Please make sure he doesn’t screw that one up.”

“You got it, lady boss.”

She left with an acknowledging nod to Harvey who turned yet another unreadable look at the junior partner who had invaded his office space as though it was in his every damned right to do so. Mike’s only response was another of his sunshine-bright grins. If he were a lesser being, Harvey would have rolled his eyes. 

It should have been odd that Jessica knew to look for Mike in Harvey’s office, and had spoken only to Mike even though it was clearly _Harvey’s_ office. 

“Get out.”

“What? Why?”

“Get out and go down to your too-small and too-accessible office,” Harvey repeated, nodded at the glass door Jessica had left open on her way out. “You’re distracting me.”

Mike pouted, and Harvey arched both brows at him.

“Also, I want pasta for lunch.”

Later, Mike’s assistant passed a box of salad and sandwiches to Donna, who dropped it off on Harvey’s table.

“Mike says, and I’m quoting verbatim here, pasta will make you sleepy. And fat,” she informed him drolly, a spark of amusement in her expressive eyes and a taunting smirk on her luscious lips. “But mostly fat.”

[12:33pm] _I’m going back to my place for the weekend._  
[12:59pm] _Wtf for?_  
[1:00pm] _To use the gym in the building. Apparently my figure leaves much to be desired._  
[1:17pm] _…_  
[1:30pm] _Dude, srsly_

[] 

“Were you texting me during a client meeting?” 

Harvey never even glanced away from the game as Mike entered his apartment, dropping his briefcase by the door and carelessly flinging his jacket and tie over the end of the coach. The other man did not reply, merely toed off his shoes and socks before clambering right on top of Harvey and curling up right there on his chest, head tucked firmly under his chin. 

“You may be toothpick, but you’re not that light either,” Harvey commented idly, when it became apparent that Mike was not going to say anything. But he draped his arm across the younger man’s middle anyway and returned his attention to the game, making no move to adjust their positions. 

He did glance down, however, when a hand slipped up under his shirt, caressing the hard planes of his stomach. Harvey smirked. Fat, his tight _ass_.

Later, before they made love up against the floor-to-ceiling windows, Mike ran a hot, wet tongue right from his chin down to his straining erection, and with a wicked smile, swallowed Harvey down to the root. Fingers tangled with soft, blonde strands as heavy-lidded eyes fluttered shut with an appreciative groan. He still managed a glare, however, when Mike slipped him out of his mouth with a pop and an impish smile. 

“You know I’d still do that if you were a fat, right?” 

_Still love you, no matter what you look like._


	2. Chapter 2

They were at a diner. A real, honest to God diner with tacky red polyester seats and waitresses in aprons and impatient smiles. Seated across from each other, jackets and vest shed with ties loosened and the top buttons popped, Harvey and Mike looked… well, they looked _comfortable_. Granted, they were still slightly out of place amidst the small crowd of tired mothers, after-school teenagers and tired workers coming off the evening shift. But no one bothered them, and the couple remained comfortably in their own private bubble of low conversation, banter and quiet smiles as they ate their greasy burgers and fries and washed it down with coke.

Mike thought everything was going well, until Harvey finished off his burger and started ineffectually wiping off his fingers on a napkin. The older man was sitting up straight, body tilted slightly forward with a gaze that seemed to burn right through his and into his bare, naked soul. It was classic Confrontational!Harvey posturing and it made Mike’s gut turn something _un_ comfortable. 

“Something is bothering you.” A statement, not a question, no less.

“Huh?”

“You’ve been quiet.” 

“Unless you’ve been debating the pros and cons of decentering regulation with yourself, I hardly think that’s a valid observation.” 

Harvey performed his usual eyebrow trick that basically translated into ‘I’m sorry, my gold-lined ears are incapable of picking up the bullshit spewing from your mouth’. Except Harvey Specter never said ‘sorry’. Much. Mike leaned back in his seat mopping sauce up from his fingers as he matched his boyfriend solemn look for solemn look. 

“You haven’t made a simple barb about me eating a meal that costs less than ten dollars _including_ tip.” Mike did so like reminding Harvey that he, too, once survived on meals that had less than four courses. “I _have_ been debating the pros and cons of decentering regulation with myself while you make appropriate noises at appropriate places and vaguely relevant comments in between pauses.” Harvey did love the sound of his own voice. Actually, Mike loved the sound of Harvey’s voice too. “And Jessica was in your office for ten minutes today.”

Donna’s network of spies was, frankly, terrifying. 

Mike’s assistant probably never stood a chance.

The blonde-haired, blue-eyed, baby-faced wonder with an eidetic memory sighed and waved his soiled, but generally still white, napkin in surrender.

“I was just thinking,” he said, suddenly looking more worn than he had appeared to be just a minute ago. “About the possibility of me actually getting a JD.” 

“Mike, we’ve been through this before—” 

“Jessica said that I’ll never, and I do think she meant _never_ , be promoted to senior partner,” Mike bulldozed forward, the miserable expression on his face saving him the censure for interrupting Harvey mid-sentence. “Not without an actual JD.”

“She said the same thing about you making junior partner,” Harvey reminded him, tone deceptively placid. 

“Maybe I _want_ to get my JD, have you thought about that?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All couples have their disagreements and these two are no exception.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some angst ahead.

The day was still young. So young that it wasn’t even noon yet. But Mike was already missing his bed, his office, his solitude, his _partner_. He gave in to the urge to slump in his seat and press his fingers against the temples of his forehead. 

“You’ll be informed if you’re shortlisted,” he distantly heard Jenna say from just beyond the closed door, her tone polite, if not warm. A moment later, his secretary was entering the hotel conference room, door shutting behind her with a muted thump before the soft click-clacking of her heels sounding against the marble floor. She gave him a sympathetic look, coming around the desk to gather up the clutter of paper on its surface – discarded resumes and cover letters, each one more outstanding and perfectly worded than the last; each one more boring than the last. 

“Not good then?” She asked as she bundled the shredder-bound papers into a file, not bothering to sort through them. The redhead didn’t wait for a reply, knowing there wasn’t one forthcoming. “Don’t worry. It’s only been three hours and twenty-five candidates.” 

Mike groaned and dropped his hands to pout at her.

“Harvard clones,” he said, the complaint almost whined. “Wooden blocks. All polished teeth and shoes, perfectly shaved, combed hair, pressed suits, thick ties…” 

“Boring,” Jenna concurred, her teasing smile going unseen as Mike groaned again and thunked his forehead against the desk. She slipped into the seat that two dozen associate hopefuls had sat on and vacated, crossing her legs at the knees and leaning comfortably against its back. A mother of one and the second on its way, Jenna was an tall, attractive woman who was not in the least ashamed of her curves and swelling belly. Mike liked that about her, and put up with her mothering even though she was his age. Louis, of course, teased him constantly about it.

“I don’t see why I need to do this. I don’t need to, really. I mean…”

“Well, now that Harold’s been headhunted by Brooks & Harper and you’ve been promoted to _Senior Partner_ ” – she said that with relish and such satisfaction that Mike looked up with his chin on the polished table and gave her a stink eye – “Firm policy dictates that you need an associate to play fetch with and order around. Although, you do know that the kids in the bullpen would offer up their firstborns to work for you.” 

“Yeah, but they’re all so… Douchebaggy.” 

“That’s very articulate, counsel.” 

“Oh, shut up.” 

“Mike, you _need_ someone to work for you,” she said sternly, wagging finger and all. “Your caseload is ridiculous, and ever since Harold left – goodness knows the poor man’s never going to get the partner position he deserves in this firm – you haven’t been eating, sleeping or living well. I know you love your job and would marry it if you could, but some things are just unhealthy. Even for you.” 

“Yes, mum,” the lawyer sighed noisily, picking up his phone to peer at it. He had a message. 

[10:58am] _Found Ross II yet?_

“Good boy,” Jenna smirked, not in the least offended, and reached over to tousle her boss’s hair before standing. “I’ll order us lunch.” 

Mike watched as she left, fingers tapping out a message without him looking at the screen. Actually, he watched her ass as she left. But only because that happened to be the level his eyes were at with his chin still on the table. Jenna was a godsend, he would say. Nowhere near Donna-level terrifying (thankfully), but delightfully competent, intelligent, firm and so genuinely friendly that she was in the good graces of all of the other legal secretaries in the firm. _Including_ Donna.

Hell, he’d hire _her_ to be his associate. Never mind that she worked strictly nine to six so that she could take care of her family and have something close to a social life. Jenna had the ability to bulldoze through her work with amazing speed, not work a minute of overtime and still come out on top of things. 

[11:42am] _Can Jenna be my associate?_  
[12:15am] _Can Louis be our pool boy?_

The message had impeccable timing. Mike choked on his beer – fuck the No Drinking While the Sun is Up rule – and coughed, earning an arched brow from his secretary as she neatly devoured her pasta. 

[12:16am] _I think I shot beer through my nostrils._  
[12:17am] _Very pretty. You’ll have to show me some time_

It turned out that none of the candidates were going to cut it. No doubt they were all smart, said the right things, checked all the boxes that Harvard told them to check. But none of them were… well, none of them were Mike Ross. Or Harvey Specter. Or even Louis Litt, when it came down to that. 

It was only slightly past three when they wrapped up, but Mike sent Jenna home and returned to Pearson Hardman alone. He briefly considered dropping in on Harvey, but ended up taking the route back to his office and dropping his briefcase carelessly on his desk instead. His boyfriend was on the verge of closing a big deal and Harvey had categorically forbidden Mike from disturbing him unnecessarily unless he intended to help, which he couldn’t even if he wanted to – he had his own cases to run. 

Their days of playing the dream team were over now, more so than ever. While Harvey continued to handle large M&A deals for the firm, Mike had, in time, started walking down the Corporate Crime route. Their split in specialties, no matter how much they overlapped, had ultimately warranted his recent promotion to head of the CC team. Begrudgingly on Jessica’s part, of course. 

With his hands in his pocket, Pearson Hardman’s newest (and by far the youngest) senior (non-equity – Jessica wasn’t _that_ stupid) partner gazed out of his office windows into New York, taking a long moment to watch the light of the setting sun set the city on fire. 

An associate might have peered in at that time, but he slowly backed away and decided that an email would suffice. Because although Mike was probably the easiest partner to get along with in the firm, the expression on his profile could only have been described as troubled. 

[11:02pm] _Are you still in the office?_  
[11:07pm] _Yep_  
[11:07pm] _Working?_  
[11:08pm] _Research_  
[11:08pm] _I’m bringing the rest of my work home for the weekend. Join me?_

The cab ride home was quiet, and neither of them spoke, merely tangled their fingers together on the car seat and looked out their respective windows. Mike was lost in thought, but Harvey was tired and just really looking forward to getting home.

‘Home’ was three apartments turned into one – a masterpiece that had involved buying up all the units on the top floor of an apartment complex, knocking down a couple of walls, and getting a strange look from the HR officer who processed their simultaneous change in similar addresses. On paper, Harvey Spector and Mike Ross had been neighbours for the past year.

Harvey was quick to disappear into their bedroom for a bath, leaving Mike to deposit their briefcases in the home office and settle onto the couch with a chilled beer and the Blu-Ray remote. 

But when the older man came out in search for him, clad only in boxers and a towel around his head, he stopped dead in his tracks, smile disappearing into a thin line of pressed lips at the sight of the sheaf of papers on the coffee table. There was a large and familiar crest on the top sheet. 

“What is this?” He asked, tone low and deceptively even, his corporate lawyer mask slipped on without thought.

Mike shrugged, a hopeful smile on his face even though his heart was thudding in his throat. He knew it wouldn’t go down well. But then, a lot of things didn’t. “My application to Harvard Law,” he said softly, bright blue eyes looking almost guilelessly up into visibly stormy orbs. “I thought you might want to go through it before I sent it in.”

For a split second – no doubt Mike would have missed it if he had blinked – there was a flash of panic across Harvey’s face before handsome features settled into an expression of chilled anger. Harvey’s fists actually clenched, and Mike rose off the couch with a placating touch to broad shoulders. 

But the brunette’s features could have been chiseled from stone as he shrugged off Mike’s hand and wordlessly returned to their bedroom. The younger man tried not to let it get to him. He really did. But as he stood alone in the living area, worrying at his lip with his teeth, he could not help but feel that spark of annoyance.

It was always Harvey’s way or the high way with him. 

No doubt Harvey gave in to him more often than he admitted or overtly showed, but it seemed like this was not going to be one of those times. The older man reappeared minutes later, fully dressed in a suit sans a tie, walking past a still standing Mike before leaving the apartment – pointedly – through ‘his’ door on the other side of the hallway. 

The door slammed, and Mike felt the fight leave him, leaving him drained and tired. He downed the remaining contents of his beer and went to retrieve a second and third. The silence that settled in the too-big apartment pressed down on him, choking him. He carded fingers roughly through his short hair, and later stood under the hot spray of the shower for 45 minutes, trying to wash away the hurt and disappointment. 

Harvey was angry. That much was obvious. But it wasn’t with Mike. Yet at the same time it could only have been with Mike. He knew it was irrational. And rather than losing his temper right there and allowing words dipped in acid that he would later regret to form, he had left. It wasn’t the first time he had done it. But it wasn’t something Mike wanted to get used to.

Mike _was_ sorry. Not with what he had done – because, clearly, he had done nothing _wrong_ \-- but sorry that he had put that first expression on Harvey’s face despite knowing that his boyfriend had deeply hidden abandonment and trust issues.

So he didn’t apologise. Refused to apologise. Merely waited the four hours it would take for Harvey to get drunk before walking over to the pub on the next street over and extracting the older man from the exploring arms of a gorgeous blonde whose delicious curves were lovingly wrapped in a tight, red dress. 

It did not matter that he looked young enough to still be in college, dressed down in a pair of Levi’s and Harvey’s Harvard pullover as he was. With a glare so glacial it should have shot daggers of ice, and Harvey’s arm instinctively curling around his shoulders to bury his nose in his neck, Mike had her giving Harvey up with nothing more than an arch of his brow and a jerk of his chin. 

Later, Mike managed to half-drag Harvey to the apartment lift with the doorman’s assistance, and then again through ‘their’ door – the middle one – and dropped him right there in the foyer. He left the older man to curl up into a ball on his side, fully clothed and sounding miserable. He knew that when his lover woke up later with a pounding head and parched throat, Harvey would sit up, stare blearily at the door, and understand its significance.

_They were in this together. Mike was doing this for *them*. So if Harvey chose to walk out the door – walk out on them – he had better have the balls to walk out through the right one._

As Mike lay down alone in the middle of the too-big-for-one bed and propped his feet up on the headboard, he stared up into the skylight above the foot of their bed and watched it change from dark blue to orange, purposefully thinking of nothing.


End file.
